Gunfight 3 in 1

Gunfight 3 in 1, known as Western Gun^[a] in Japan^[3][1] and Europe,^[4] is a 1975 multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado,^[5] and released by Taito in Japan^[3] and Europe^[4] and by Midway in North America.^[3][5] Based around two Old West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel, it was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat.^[6] The Midway version was also the first video game to use a microprocessor instead of TTL.^[6][7] The game’s concept was adapted from Sega‘s 1969 arcade electro-mechanical game Gun Fight.

The game was a global commercial success. In Japan, Western Gun was among the top ten highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976. In the United States, Gun Fight sold 8,600 arcade cabinets and was the third highest-grossing arcade game of 1975, second highest-grossing arcade game of 1976 and fifth highest arcade game of 1977.

It was ported to the Bally Astrocade video game console^[8] as a built-in game^[9] in 1977^[10] and later the Atari 8-bit family.^[11]

Gameplay – Gunfight 3 in 1

Western Gun is a single-screen shooter^[12] where two players compete in an Old West gun fight.^[13] It was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat.^[6]^[8] When shot, the characters in fall to the ground and the words “GOT ME!” appear above the body.^[14] The game has two joysticks per player: an eight-way joystick for moving the computerized cowboy and the other for changing the shooting direction.^[3]^[15] Unlike later dual stick games, Western Gun has the movement joystick on the right.

Obstacles between the characters block shots, such as a cactus,^[16] and (in later levels) stagecoaches.^[14] The guns have limited ammunition, with each player given six bullets. A round ends if both players run out of ammo.^[12] Gunshots can ricochet off the top and bottom edges of the playfield, allowing for indirect hits.^[12]^[16]

Taito’s original Western Gun allows the two players to move around anywhere on the screen. Midway’s version, Gun Fight, restricts each player to their respective portions of the screen and also increased the size of the characters.^[17]

Development – Gunfight 3 in 1

Both Western Gun and Gun Fight have artwork of Wild West cowboys on the cabinet, with matching in-game graphics featuring cacti, rocks, and human characters (and a covered wagon in Gun Fight). These cartoon-like humans were in contrast to earlier games which used miniature shapes to represent abstract blocks or spaceships.^[5]

The original game, Western Gun, was created by Tomohiro Nishikado for Taito.^[5] The game’s concept was adapted from a Sega arcade electro-mechanical game, also called Gun Fight,^[18] which was released in 1969.^[19] In that game, two players control cowboy figurines on opposing sides of a playfield full of obstacles, with each player attempting to shoot the opponent’s cowboy.

The cowboy figurines were adapted into character sprites, with both players able to maneuver across a landscape while shooting each other. It was the second game by Nishikado to use human character sprites, after a 1974 sports video game he designed for Taito, Basketball, which was released as TV Basketball by Midway in North America.^[18]

Taito licensed Western Gun to Midway for release in North America, one of the first such licenses, after the 1974 scrolling racing game Speed Race,^[20] also designed by Nishikado,^[21] and the 1974 sports game Basketball.^[22] The title Western Gun, while making perfect sense for Japanese audiences in that it conveyed the setting and theme as simply as possible, sounded odd to American audiences, so it was renamed Gun Fight for its American localization.^[20]